IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/ijmfpp/v12y2016i3p314-334.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Family ownership and dividend payout in Malaysia

Author

Listed:
  • Samuel Jebaraj Benjamin
  • Shaista Wasiuzzaman
  • Helen Mokhtarinia
  • Niloufar Rezaie Nejad

Abstract

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of family ownership on dividend payout from the perspective of agency costs in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach - – Annual financial, board and family ownership data of 160 firms listed on the Bursa Malaysia are collected for the period 2005-2010. Analyses are carried out using descriptive statistics,χ2 tests, Tobit regression and three-stage least square regression analysis. Findings - – The empirical results suggest that family share ownership at the dispersed level from between 0 to 5 percent is negatively associated with dividend payout and positively associated from the 5 to 33 percent level with dividend payout. Consistent with the extant literature, the observed relationship between family share ownership and dividend payout is stronger in firms with smaller total assets (size), low debt and low-growth opportunities. Further examination of investment decisions lends support to arguments which attribute higher agency costs as a result of family ownerships. Research limitations/implications - – The observed results at the different family ownership levels are attributed to the possible expropriation in family-owned firms and accordingly, to the proportional pressure by minority and other shareholders for dividend payout. Practical implications - – For policy makers, findings from this study could serve to justify initiatives to further strengthen the institutional and regulatory architectures that would enhance the power of minority and other shareholders of public listed firms in Malaysia. Originality/value - – This study contributes to the growing literature on dividend policy and family firms. Particularly, it provides further understanding of the effect of family ownership on dividend policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Samuel Jebaraj Benjamin & Shaista Wasiuzzaman & Helen Mokhtarinia & Niloufar Rezaie Nejad, 2016. "Family ownership and dividend payout in Malaysia," International Journal of Managerial Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 12(3), pages 314-334, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:eme:ijmfpp:v:12:y:2016:i:3:p:314-334
    DOI: 10.1108/IJMF-08-2014-0114
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJMF-08-2014-0114/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJMF-08-2014-0114/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/IJMF-08-2014-0114?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hanqing “Chevy” Fang & Kulraj Singh & Taewoo Kim & Laura Marler & James J. Chrisman, 2022. "Family business research in Asia: review and future directions," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 39(4), pages 1215-1256, December.
    2. Bashir Zahid & Rafique Zulqurnain Zeeshan & Toor Kashif Naseer, 2022. "How do dynamic financing decisions explain the behavior of dividend payout policies?: An Empirical Study of Listed Pakistani Manufacturing Firms," Financial Internet Quarterly (formerly e-Finanse), Sciendo, vol. 18(1), pages 1-15, March.
    3. Iman Harymawan & Mohammad Nasih & Muhammad Madyan & Diarany Sucahyati, 2019. "The Role of Political Connections on Family Firms’ Performance: Evidence from Indonesia," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-14, September.
    4. Vincent Molly & Anneleen Michiels, 2022. "Dividend decisions in family businesses: A systematic review and research agenda," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 992-1026, September.
    5. Adelugba Iyabode Abisola & Agboola Oluyemisi.O & Eze Benneth Uchenna, 2023. "Corporate Governance And Firm Performance: Evidence From The Nigerian Banking Sector," Business & Management Compass, University of Economics Varna, issue 4, pages 242-252.
    6. Vasanthan Subramaniam & Shaista Wasiuzzaman, 2019. "Corporate diversification and dividend policy: empirical evidence from Malaysia," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 23(3), pages 735-758, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:ijmfpp:v:12:y:2016:i:3:p:314-334. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.